Salt water stung her abrasions, and she gasped at the freezing temperatures, but she kicked steadily, swimming toward the caves. She surfaced for air twice, and then the third time, came up inside the cave. Gasping and cursing, she crawled out onto the sandy ledge, shivering. With shaking hands, she found a lantern and a match. It took a couple of tries to scrape it, before it finally caught.
The lantern shed a dull light on her little lair. The black water gleamed back at her. Yvienne raced to undress and dry off, and get into warm clothes. It felt strange to get back into her usual clothes – bloomers, shift, corset, stockings, petticoat, dress. They made her feel like regular old Yvienne, a boring governess. She spread out the boy’s clothing to let it dry. The clothes would be stiff with salt but she hadn’t the time to wash them. In the lantern light she examined the tears. The coat and trousers were both badly torn.
Might have to buy new, she thought, but it wasn’t crucial. The police would be looking for a man with torn coat and trousers, and of course she would not be wearing any of those things. She cast an eye at a small pocket watch she kept wound in the cave. About two of the clock. She had time to get a few hours’ sleep before she would have to walk over to the TreMondis’ to start lessons. It would have been lovely to sleep in her own bed, even find out how Tesara had done at the Scarlantis’, but she had told Mama she was sleeping over, and wouldn’t be expected home.
She was too excited and exhausted to sleep. Yvienne pulled out the satchel. She had an inkling that she might have to swim for it tonight and so she had taken only bills from her victims. She counted and straightened the money, raising her eyebrows at the haul.
House Kerrill had been surprisingly easy to enter, although Mr Kerrill had set up a patrol of burly watchmen with dogs to patrol a perimeter. Yvienne had straightened her collar, removed her kerchief, and walked past the guards as a late-coming young gentleman, reeling a little as if she had already started her revelry.
As she had already experienced, drunken young men were easy pickings. What had taken her by surprise were her own mixed feelings at robbing her old friends. Even Amos, swaggering, bullying Amos, had once been someone she knew and was expected to know socially. And quiet, charming Jone Saint Frey, whom she suspected her sister of rather liking when they were kids, was there. When she had fired the warning shot, he had looked straight at her as if he knew her, and it flustered her.
Girls screamed, boys shouted, men scrambled into action. Yvienne sprang into belated action, took Jeni Scarlanti as a hostage, gathered up as much as she could, and then bolted.
It was close, she thought, shivering, as her elation waned and weariness set in. She would have to come up with a story to explain the abrasions and the limp, and every story made it harder to keep up the deception. She had so much to do, and she was no closer to understanding how the Guild had destroyed her family or worse yet, how to restore it. The Gentleman Bandit had become a distraction from her true purpose, and she felt a pang of guilt, that she had let desire for revenge get in the way of uncovering the truth. I must focus, she thought. This was the last job. It had to be. She had to focus on finding out who had destroyed House Mederos.
The nervous energy that kept her running was draining away. She yawned, and cleared a space to lie down on the sandy shelf. She was dry now and warm enough. She darkened the lantern and clutched the pocket watch, knowing she would wake in three hours because its steady ticking counting down the seconds would impinge itself on her sleep, ensuring she woke up on schedule. Her eyes closed, and the sound of the nearby sea lulled her into sleep.
As brisk, rosy dawn rose over Port Saint Frey that morning, it gave light to the usual bustle of carters and servants, delivery boys and grooms, all hustling to their posts. Shopkeepers threw back their shutters and pushcart men wheeled their bright carts into the marketplace. No one marked the serious, dark-haired governess in serviceable clothes, limping only slightly and carrying a leather schoolbag, making her way to the TreMondi house on the lower Crescent. She fit right in to the business of the city.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Exactly what is the Guild? It ostracizes the good people of Port Saint Frey and elevates others, gives its imprimatur to the actions of a few, and then says, “But you here, you are wanting.” It is immoderate and inconsistent, tyrannical and secretive, and raises up some, only to cast down others.
Ah, but the Guild would have no power except that it uses its capriciousness to entice the unwary to seek its favor. For like an inconstant mistress, now all smiles and the next a-tantrum, it tricks its constant beloved into seeking to placate the storms and return the sea to calm. But it’s never the constant lover’s fault – the Guild cares nothing for the efforts of its faithful swain.
The good citizens of Port Saint Frey do have the power to correct the Guild. As the wise nanny disciplines a tempestuous child by refusing to give into its petty tantrums, but says only, “I cannot speak to you right now, you must calm yourself,” and turns her back, so must Freysians discipline the
